from the better-late-than-never dept

Denuvo, as you will recall, is the name of a modern version of anti-piracy DRM, foretold to be the end of video game piracy, when the reality is that its legend exceeded its capability. While we've begun to see an uptick in stories of game developers actively limiting or excluding the use of DRM in their games, those stories tend not to be about Denuvo DRM. Many have taken this to be an indication of Denuvo's strength and usefulness, even if it isn't 100% effective.

Nowadays, most talk of DRM revolves around titles that add the “anti-tamper” tech known as Denuvo, thus preventing piracy of those games. That’s what makes the latest update to side-scrolling puzzle game Inside so unusual: the developers have chosen to do away with Denuvo.

Playdead did not give a reason for the removal of Denuvo in the short patch-notes, though it’s worth noting that the game was also recently released on GOG—which is marketed as a digital storefront that does not believe in DRM.

Which is one of the ways that GOG is most useful. Like a popular candidate on the extreme end of the political spectrum, the success and popularity of GOG serves to yank what might otherwise be a near-uniform desire to use DRM by game developers back to a more reasonable position. If developers see GOG as a good platform for selling their games, even with the site's virulent anti-DRM stance, then it stands to reason that DRM generally isn't worth including in their games. That this is starting to become the calculation for what was supposed to be the DRM unicorn is a positive development, though one wonders just how much money Playdead wasted including it in the first place.

Meanwhile, fans of the game are celebrating Playdead's decision. Some are even actively promoting the game to friends and family, or buying other titles by the studio, all as a result for removing an annoyance to legitimate customers.

from the about-time dept

If you like PC games, chances are you already know all about GOG, or Good Old Games. The GOG website has done more to extend the life of gently-aged games by building a platform for old games that will work on new machines while having one singular principal dominate their products: there shall be no DRM. Digital Rights Managment seems like it's always existed and has equally never worked, what with cracks, hacks and other methods for getting around games that employ DRM being available almost immediately after games get released. It's a losing strategy. GOG, on the other hand, has made their insistence on DRM-free games a winning strategy for themselves, for customers, and even for once-apprehensive publishers. DRM certainly hasn't disappeared from the gaming industry, but GOG's working experiment has gone a long way to reduce its use.

They're starting small, launching with a handful of independent documentaries for $5.99 a piece in hopes of eventually branching out to studio films and television shows. The folks at GOG are pushing hard on the "DRM-free" angle here too, promising that nothing they sell will be saddled with the copyright restrictions you might get while buying a TV show on iTunes or Amazon.

"Most of [the studios we spoke to] admit that DRM does not protect anything, all protections are cracked on the day of the release of the movie or even before and that there is no DRM that can protect a movie against piracy," said a GOG representative in an e-mail to Kotaku. "The whole industry knows DRM is just smoke and mirrors and it does not work, so why not abandon it?"

Why not indeed? Though streaming is becoming a dominant method for viewing content, there still must be a market for the ownership of movies and television shows. DRM from the likes of the current marketplaces serves no end except to annoy actual customers, while pirated versions of pretty much everything already exist for those not willing to do right by content producers. What GOG did for games certainly seems like it should work for movies and TV shows: remove the annoyance and provide a clean and slick market for DRM-free show/movie content. As they said, they're starting small, but if this is successful we might finally start to see a landslide of a perception-change when it comes to DRM.

Interestingly, it seems that talks for a wider catalog are proceeding more successfully than I might have expected.

"These are very smart people and they see that the anti-piracy measure does not work at all," said a GOG rep in an e-mail. "We realize that the movie industry is much older than the gaming industry and it moves slower, with caution. As such, we'll get started with some real examples to show that it works–hence our first batch of 20 documentaries."

What also interests me is how the documentaries for this pilot program are all focused on gaming and internet culture, arguably attractive to a demographic that might be most knowledgeable about piracy and perhaps more willing than the general population to pirate content. If they can be successful there, I'd argue the rest of the general public ought to be a cinch. Get on board with this, studios. Someone is trying to save you from yourselves.

from the idle-hands dept

I'm not sure if you heard, but the United States government has been shut down, or has been "slimmed down," or is partially funded, or whatever some talking noggin on your favorite cable news network has told you this news cycle. Terror is being expressed, much talk has been made over the dire consequences, and everyone is looking for someone to blame as our government pulls its latest hissy-fit slap-fight instead of being productive. Yay, democracy. Anyway, the result is a great many furloughed government employees with their retroactive pay guaranteed and a whole lot of self-reflection time on their hands.

No worries, because retro-gaming website Good Old Games is here to help. They've decided to make the further assclown-ery of our esteemed elected lizard-people a sort of theme for their latest publicity stunt. They're going halvsies with customers on game titles like Capitalism 2 and Theme Hospital. But the deal is even better if you're one of those furloughed folks on the government teet.

Finally, we would like to express our condolences to everyone who's been furloughed by the shutdown. More than that, actually, we'd like to offer you the games pack of our special Shutdown Promo for free. Send an email to thanksobama@gog.com with your picture holding the official furlough letter you received, before Friday 11 October 2013 at 12:00 EDT and we'll give you The Guild: Gold Edition, Capitalism, Capitalism 2, Tropico: Gold Edition, Alpha Centauri + Alien Crossfire, Theme Hospital, and Redneck Rampage free.

GOG, which has experimented with some forward-thinking promotions in the past, really knows how to turn government ineptitude into an opportunity. Yes, this is an obvious publicity stunt. Yes, I'm helping that stunt by writing this article. But I don't care, because the prospect of government employees essentially getting retroactively paid to play games based on healthcare, government, and capitalism, all of which they're getting for free, is the kind of recursive irony that tastes as good as a cut of prime rib.

So if you're sitting at home because our two party system has melted into a massive talking-points circle-jerk, pass the time by playing some games for free. And know that we Americans all appreciate the work you aren't doing thanks to the weirdos we all sent to Washington.